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Everyone seems to understand that it's important to have a "brand" as branding is the foundation on which your entire online marketing 'platform' is built. But more and more people are asking me: "How can I build a brand on the various Social Media platforms?".
Social Media is Nothing New
Before we dive into the tips, it's good to realize that Social Media is nothing new and we all have been doing it from the beginning of time...Social Media is about connecting with people. What has changed are the tools. The tools now allow us to make that human connection on a whole different level..

Drive more traffic, increase content consumption, and encourage user participation…Gamification has become a most exciting mainstream technique that marketers rely on.
Gamification is the process of using game thinking and mechanics to engage audiences and solve problems.
Game dynamics are now entering every aspect of daily life. Good games take players (aka customers) on a journey. Early Gamification techniques only involved adding simple game mechanics like points, badges and leader boards to websites and apps. But, what I discovered at the Gamification Summit in NYC, an incredible 2 day

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose ~ Steve Jobs
In tribute of Steve Jobs, I wanted to highlight one of my all time favorite videos of Steve Jobs, where he urges graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life's setbacks -- including death itself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
Transcript of Steve Jobs' inspirational commencement address:
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

THINK, MAKE, CHECK...it is that simple and it is profoundly effective…great user experience can be achieved at start-up speed!
I recently attended a LUXi, the Lean User Experience Intensive facilitated by Lane Halley & Josh Seiden of LUXr. The 2-day, hands-on, workshop is designed to teach entrepreneurs how they can achieve "predictable, high-quality, high-velocity user experience outcomes" using Lean UX Principals and I am really excited to share what I learned.
The traditional user experience process is normally long and expensive and that makes it challenging for startups to g

Last week, I installed a great browser extension, ColorZilla, and have been using it extensively because it saves me a lot of time. ColorZilla is a feature rich extension for web designers. Here are some of my favorite features:
Get a color reading of anything in your browser.
Easily copy RGB or Hexadecimal color you selected to any other application
Tweak the color you selected using the built in color palette browser.
Enlarge pages with zoom feature so it is easier for you to sample the color
Here are instructions on how to download, install, and use Colorzilla Firefox exten

Almost every situation/transaction allows an opportunity for you to practice one of the most important business skills in business is Negotiating.
Yes, I do know that most people hate negotiating, but, if done well, it can be fun and also, if done well and when it is time to negotiate seriously, and you prepare for it, negotiating can either put or keep a lot more money in your pocket.
You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate
Negotiating Quick Facts:
Women will pay on average more than $1,353 to avoid negotiating the price of a car
Women typically ask for less and

Unless you are one of those people who uses flowcharting software on a regular basis, it is hard to justify spending money on Visio, SmartDraw, or CorelDraw. So I set out to find some free flowcharting software alternatives.
Gliffy
Gliffy is a free web-based diagram editor. It has been referred to as the online visio killer. Gliffy is a great tool that makes it easy to create, share, and collaborate on a wide range of diagrams.
You will need to register to begin drawing and must have a Flash plug-in installed in your browser.
Draw.io
draw.io is online diagram software / flowchart make

I recently wrote a post on do it yourself search engine optimization and have received some questions from the readers about the process of picking keyword for your website or blog that you can then use to optimize your web pages. Picking the right keywords is important because they will essentially be the traffic drivers to your website or blog.
When determining what your keywords should be, you need to ask yourself "If I were a person looking for my product or service what keywords would I use to search for them?".
Start with creating a list of keywords that are relevant to your we

I have recently discovered Palette Grabber, a really neat Firefox extension for web designers that grabs all the colors used on a website and exports them to "color palette" file that can then be used in a wide range of image editing applications.Â Â This tool makes it really easy to see what color combinations work together and tweak them for your own designs.
Palette Grabber is a free download and works with any version of Firefox.Â Â It supports Photoshop, Flash, PaintShop Pro, GIMP, Adobe Fireworks, and Mac OS X Color Picker palette formats.
Here are instructions on how to do

We all know the name of a company or brand is important, but coming up with a winner is far from easy. Back in June, Nelly wrote a great post about Rules for Naming Your Startup, which outlines a checklist for validating whether you have a good name and lists possible pitfalls to avoid. So how do you come up with name candidates to run through this checklist?
Recently the group I'm in at work faced this challengeÂ because we needed to come up with a name for a new offering. When we were asked to submit ideas, I remember looking at the blank screen wondering how best to begin my brainstorm

Speaking and presenting is a great way to showcase your expertise and a great marketing strategy for yourself, your company, and your products and services.
Having sat through many un-engaging presentations and lectures, I have incorporated the Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and Accelerated Learning Technique (ALT) into my speeches and presentations to engage with my audience as I am presenting.Â I found that ALT & NLP techniques help the audience stay engaged with the information resulting in quicker learning and higher information retention rates.Â As a presenter you want yo

Time is a big commodity and every day every one of us tries to figure out a way to spend less time working and more time doing what we love...spend it with family & friends, take on a new hobby or finally get back to the one we've been neglecting.
We all try to implement our own time management techniques: managing email, managing our employees and work flow, managing interruptions, and the list can go on and on.Â We are all struggling to figure out the work-life balance thing.Â This is especially hard for working women, especially women in technology who can become victims of tec

Search engine optimization (SEO) is extremely important to any website or blog. The higher the search engines rank your website the more website traffic gets directed to your web site, which you will hopefully be able to convert into loyal users.
Although SEO can get quite complex, there are simple things you can do yourself to ensure that your business website ranks higher in search engines for specific keywords. The first thing you need to do is to define the keywords and phrases you want to optimize for.
1. Define Keywords
Use a keyword research tool such as Overture to find the be

I was at the BlogHer '08 conference this past weekend and did a lot of networking and now have a pile of business cards that I have to follow up with.Â Although it can be a a lot of work, following up with your new contacts ASAP is an important process of building an effective network.
Here are some tips for managing your business cards and ensure that you network more effectively:
1. Write notes about your conversation on the back of the card and any specific action items at the time of the conversation.
2. When you get home, use a business card scanner to scan the business car